Texas Is Being Sued Over a Law That Bans a Safe and Common Abortion Procedure

Abortion rights groups say Senate Bill 8 is another attempt by lawmakers to make abortion care unreachable for Texas women.

Texas is being sued over a state law that bans a safe and common second-trimester in-clinic abortion procedure, and which goes into effect in September.

Announced by the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood on Thursday, the lawsuit — Whole Woman’s Health v. Paxton — is focused on a provision of Texas Senate Bill 8 that makes it illegal for physicians to perform dilation and evacuation abortions. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the law, which makes no exception for rape or incest, earlier this summer.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement that S.B. 8 “threatens public health and safety by criminalizing doctors for using medical judgment,” and sees S.B. 8 as another attempt by Texas lawmakers to enact a “de facto ban on women’s fundamental right to access abortion.”

Similar provisions in other states have also been subject to legal challenge. In West Virginia and Mississippi, courts blocked the challenged abortion restrictions before they could take effect.

S.B. 8 contains very little medical language. It bans what the bill’s authors refer to as“dismemberment abortion,” an anti-choice term for dilation and evacuation abortion procedures. “It’s very obvious that the intent of the law is to be an abortion ban and to restrict a doctor’s decision-making and expertise in the second trimester,” said Amy Hagstrom-Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health and lead plaintiff in the case. “That’s one of the most crucial things for us to really look at here, politicians are tying the hands of doctors.”

This lawsuit comes shortly after the anniversary of the landmark decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a Supreme Court case that made it clear that abortion restrictions promising improvements for women’s health must provide evidence of actually doing so. In a news release, Hagstrom-Miller stated that S.B. 8 offers no improvement for women’s health in Texas.

This lawsuit also marks the third time in less than a year that Texas has been challenged over abortion policies in federal court. In January, as a result of another Whole Woman’s Health lawsuit, a federal judge blocked a state rule that required health providers to bury or cremate fetal remains. And in February, the same federal judge halted the state from removing Planned Parenthood affiliates from Medicaid.

Despite the Supreme Court ruling and the repeated challenging of laws that serve to restrict abortion access, Texas lawmakers have continued to introduce new bans and provisions. “It is absurd, that even in the wake of our powerful SCOTUS victory, we had a Texas legislative session this year where politicians introduced more than 45 bills to try and further restrict women’s access to abortion care,” Hagstrom-Miller said in a news release. “Frankly, it is shocking and I know many of you share my commitment to resistance. This can never become normal, we must all stay shocked.”